Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-08


the several railroad companies in this city. As
making is essentially Office work by whom
ever done, the best place to 10 il is at corpora
ton headquarters, in close and friendly rela-
tons with capable and obiiging railroad officers
and experts. II the advice of anti-railrosd pa
triots be desired, that is precisely the place to
find them. Most of them agree with us that the
Commission, theoretically, is a bureaucratic
agency, in the European sense and of the class
described. If not such in practice, it is because
its mandatory and conclusive power for mischief
has not been surrendered to horde of spoils-
men, whose suffers are their statesmen. But
while supplies cut off by a conservative admin
istration, are ia sight, there win be contnu-
ing motive for another foray. And unless the
sovereign people shall remove the inducing
cause, they may yet realize the regret of an
English queen, when she exclaimed: :" The
subjects grief comes through commissions"
To build and equip railroads tG be controlled
and cinched by awkward squads OF political
bunglers. who always ignore the practical opin-
ions and Judgment of their owners and whose
superior wisdom comes from the sensational
stump and press, will never be very attractive
business. 1t would be better, therefore, TO en-
courage and justify construction by assurances
OF successful operation. To 40 this DISTINGUISHED
incompetents should have the contracts, at
what theJ are worth for constructing railroads
to be thereafter controlled and operated by
others, the measure of whose interest in their
,ess, aside from the natural desire to please.
is their stake in the public service. Subject
only to the fallibiity of men in all their corpo-
the best possible use of proverbial blunderers,
and would also secure the highest attainable ca
paeity and experience for the larger and more
lasting interests of all concerned Il would in
sure the adoption at the beginning of factors
and principles of transportation which, like the
irrepealable laws of nature. must and will pre-
vail in the long run.
THEORY AND PRACTICE.
If they have not prevailed in our administra-
ton of this Office il is not by reason of any con-
paitpd mr. Aicrprord nf thair ir,fri Dcp
importance, but because of our inability to mas
ter and apply them as we'll trained staff of
railroad officers might have done. But they
have been the governing factors in all our adj
justments of fares and freights, whether by
schedules prepared in this office, or by changes
of classifcations and revisions of rates, which
from time to time have been made by rail Dad
companies and submitted for our approval.
Within the past year, as per orders 81 -, S3, 81
and 81, there have been four such changes and
revisious from higher to lower classes and rates,
and one comparatively unimportant schedule
of rates on the new road from Berenda to Ray
mond. The modes of procedure and constit-
uent elements of railway service, to which we
have steadily adhered, have been so often ex-
planned and defended in former reports, and
have been so thoroughly vindicated in practice,
that we need not dwell upon them here
Some OF the more constant and potent of these
factors are necessarily and clearly implied in
the units of all railroad service, termed train,
ton and passenger miles. As the train mile is
the unit of railroad service, exclusive of all
factors save distance alone, so the ton mile and
passenger mile are the units of public use meas
ured by distance and volume of business, show
ing the ratio OF loaded to empty trains. In the
proportion that train miles exceed ton and pas
senger miles, the actual service and capacity OF
a given road are in excess of their public use,
and empty trains are the measure of patronage
to be supplied aud secured.
If this is to be done by multiplying and re-
plenishing the population, corporations have
only the contemporary prosperity which
70 ba Facilitated and
encouraged by special inducements, such as
were extended by all the transe influential roads
this side of the Missouri river long prior to their
rate wars. If it is to be done by fostering pro-
building homes in waste places, their develop
ment requires accommodating service and. DIFF
ferential rates, so often mistaken and denounced
for waTlton Determinations. decomposition has
come with empty cars to divide ton and passen-
ger miles it means a sti greater ratio Of train
TO ton and passenger miles, or the alternative of
pooling. or competitive charges, regardless of
an unequal mileage for short and long hauls.
The dire alternative is thus not only present
ed, but it is properly accepted, for the reason
that fixed expenses do not depend on distance
of movement, and are charge rather upt II u e
ton of freight and passenger, as units OF guam
tity and quality. than upon the ton and passen-
ger MILE as units of distance and volume'o
traffic. Then again, consider with reference
to cost of movement, train, ton or passenger
mile over an upgrade of twenty feet to the
mile, costs about twice the power that 1t does to
go the same distance on a level track, and over
the maximum of gradients in this State, which
is about 116 feet to the mile it costs nearly niue
times the power required for the same distance
on q level road.
SHORT AND LONG HAULs
But because railroads have not quite annihil-
atr distance, it remains to be considered and
measured. In the estimation of political jock
eys who, for their own purposes, would curb
and cinch railroad companies, it is the sole
factor of transportation. 1t is the all in all of
~" equal mileage rates." which they have so in
solently dem anded of Legislatures and of this
up unequal conditions and splitting differences
by horizontal flight of imagination. 1t should
be entitled "a The railroad problem made easy
for political experts" 1t is even more simple
than the formula of the colored mathematician,
which runs: 'sAughts aught ones a one,
two to carry, ten to throw away, and nothing
lett" But seriously, who believes that such in
herent constituents as volume, development and
competition can be voted, legislated or tritied
out of rail or water transportation While they
are among the substantive elements of railroad
traffic their relative importance is determined
by the law of supply and demand. Hen G. to
shipper and carrier direction is often vastly
more important than the distance ofmoyement.
And as the objective market determines the di-
rsetion, what becomes of distance as controll-
ing consideration for either of them? And for
the 'onger haul, if peculiarly subject to compe-
tition, or to the legitimate purposes of develop
ment, the charge should be less than for the
shorter one in the same direction; and any ar
bitrary prohibition, in the Constitution or stat
utes, of this necessary and natural law of rail-
road service, ought to be removed
THEORIES TESTED BY KNOWN CONDITIONS.
The delusive theory of equal mileage, or uni
form rates, is length without breadth, depth or
hight. 1t presupposes fortunate coincidence
of conditions, of which only Rasselas in his
:" Happy Valley" ever dreamed 1t is rudely
dispelled by the controlling realities which ulti
mately test its value N practice. Take the broad
wonderland west of the Missouri river. and
where sre the necessary conditions precedent TO
uniform rates to be found? Can the delusion
be kept up over uninhabited deserts and plains?
Looking out from mountain passes across reced-
leg ridges and foothills to the valleys they en-
circ e, do they present the dead level conditions
wnicn are so iippantly assumed? And without
the corresponding conditions. what are the
practical results proposed by the advocates OF
uniform rates. They find empty cars at COM
petitive stations and while railing against pools,
condemn them to continued emptiness by max
ing competitive charges the maximum at all
other points. They impose the same penalty
upon the beneficial policy oil special rates for the
legitimate purposes of development by making
them the ruling rates to the limit of their power
TO injure. By ignoring commercial distinctions
of wholesale and retail trade ana imposing uni
form rates upon both, they rob one class of ship
pers without favoring the other. In the absence
of all evidence to the contrary, 1t is fair to pre-
sumo that no shipper who would not have to be
blindfolded to get him aboard ear ever de-
table Tesu is.
To hush the cry of distress that has always
come from political managers. a very few sym
pathetic shippers ana producers may have
Joined in preconcerted response. For that
purpose uni orm rates of fare and freight are
good enough. But the producing and CONNER
cial word has never been greatly excited or
alarme at the selEgovernment OF railroad COM
panies which has always resulted in diferrntial
tariffs 1t has found IN railroads everywhere
from shipping to objective markets aud back
again the subservient agents OF trade and com
merce subjecl to the same s lf-executing law Of
supply and demand. With this law ALWAYS
before them and pre>uming upon its constant
operation and universal CONTROL prac ical traihc
managers fist estimate the volume and dlfec-
ticn of business in sight and to be developed,
and. second. perating expenses. Hence it is
that wit out mandatory national OF inter
national commissions, and varied only by local
conditions, the same results are everywhere pro-
dGced In the populous suntries of Western
Europe, whera the ratio of passenger TO train
miles is nearly two to one, freight rates are cor
IL spondingly high. Thus in Great British,
France, Belgium, Prussia and Austria, The
average rate per ton mile is 1.46 cents. In the
United States, where production is in excess OF
population, the relative average is reversed, End
4 Ill &c will